Withering wind (kogarashi)

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Withering Wind, Cold Gale (kogarashi)

***** Location: Japan, other areas
***** Season: Early Winter
***** Category: Heavens

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Explanation

This is one of the first really cold winds, when the last leaves are swept from the trees. Literally it means "tree-witherer".

withering wind, cold wind
kogarashi　木枯らし, 木枯, 凩

Echigo Mountains, Echigo Yama, see below

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World Haiku Review
COLD WIND, by Susumu Takiguch

In the Edo Period, kogarashi was used either for autumn or winter, but it is now a kigo for early winter. It is the cold and strong north or west wind in October and November, which withers leaves and blows them off the trees. However, it seems that the emphasis is more on the strength of the wind than on its coldness.

kogarashi ya umi ni yuhi o fuki-otosu
(Natsume Soseki)

withering wind
blows the setting sun
down to the sea
(ST version)


kogarashi ya hoshi fuki-kobosu umi no ue
(Masaoka Shiki)

withering wind --
stars are blown scattered
over the sea
(ST version)


kogarashi ya ishi fuki-tobasu Ohi-gawa
(Hasegawa Reyoko)

winter gale --
blowing rocks away
at the Ohi-gawa River
(ST version)


kogarashi ni Asama no kemuri fuki-chiru ka
(Takahama Kyoshi)

withering wind --
would the smoke of Asama vocano
be blown everywhere
(ST version)


Some other samples where the strength of kogarashi is not that apparent: -

kogarashi no hikkakari iru toge no ki
(Hara Yutaka)

withering wind --
caught and hanging on
to the hilltop tree
(ST version)

kogarashi ya me yori toridasu ishi no tsubu
(Watanabe Hakusen)

winter gale --
I get out grit
from my eyes
(ST version)


umi ni dete kogarashi kaeru tokoro nashi
(Yamaguchi Seishi)

blowing into the sea
withering wind has now
no place to return
(ST version)

*This haiku was written in October 1944 and the Kamikaze pilots were flying to the sea then.


kogarashi ya mezashi ni nokoru umi no iro
(Akutagawa Ryunosuke)

withering wind --
faint on the dried sardines
the colour of the sea
(ST version)

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Worldwide use


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Things found on the way


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HAIKU

> kogarashi ga
> iki o hisomeru
> ike no fuchi

The wintry wind
Hides its breath
In the pond's depths

Toshiaki from Canda: A Love Story enfolds

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木枯らしの吹き行くうしろ姿かな　

嵐雪



kogarashi no fukiyuku ushirosugata kana

withering winds -
blow and gone, we see
its backside now
(Tr. Gabi Greve)


写真は木枯らし１号に耐える尾花
東松山葛袋, 撮影　11月13日
http://www.geocities.jp/tokihikok/masaji/haiku/oriori/2004/fuyu/kogarashi.html

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kogarashi no hate wa arikeri umi no oto

bitter winter wind
ends there --
sound of the sea

IKENISHI Gonsui (1650-1722)

comment:
The word kogarashi reminds us Japanese of the bitter cold wind in the winter which may be beyond imagination for people in warmer countries. I have spent some winters in a colder country than Japan, but I felt the Japanese winter was much colder than that. It may be because of the moisture and the housing architecture. The kogarashi in the Edo Period must have been much severer than now, which may explain the reason why this haiku became popular then.

Gonsui, later surely influenced modern poets like YAMAGUCHI Seishi who wrote a related haiku about the WW II suicide bomber pilots in his famous haiku:

umi ni dete kogarashi kaeru tokoro nashi

out to the sea --
bitter winter wind
has no place to return

Haiku Selected by SATO Kazuo
http://www.haiku-hia.com/kongetsu_en05.html


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Kogarashi ya
Take ni kakurete
Shizumarinu

Matsuo Basho

Amid the wintry gust
Disappears amid the bamboos
And subsides to a calm
(Tr. Toshinaka)

(note the opposition of motion and stillness in the poem, "there is a delicate harmony between the two senses"(Ueda, 48))
http://mll.kenyon.edu/~japanese02/J28sp99/projects/tohinaka/1/1.html

A wintry gust
disappears amid the bamboos
and subsides to a calm.
(© Makoto Ueda)

Порывистый листобой
спрятался в рощу бамбука
и понемногу утих.
(© Вера Маркова)
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/dmitrismirnov/BASHO_Haiku_K2.html


withering gales !
they hide in the bamboo
and subside
(Tr. Gabi Greve, 2006)

Here is a photo of my bamboo grove. Click on the photo to see more !



More versions of this haiku and a discussion of kogarashi and fuyu no arashi (winter storm):

R. H. Blyth:

The winter tempest
Hid itself in the bamboos,
And grew still.


Robert Hass:

The winter storm
hid in the bamboo grove
and quieted away.


Jane Reichhold:

a withering wind
hiding in the bamboo
has calmed down


Stephen Addiss (with Fumiko and Akira Yamamoto):

The winter storm
hides in the bamboo
and becomes silent

Contributed by Larry Bole
Translating Haiku Forum

... ... ...

poliyunna kaatu
mulangoottathil
olinju illaathaay

this Haiku in Malayalam, by Narayanan Raghunathan

... ... ...

withering wind
hidden in the bamboo
subsides

Tr. Grzegorz Sionkowski. Read the discussion too.

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山寺や木がらしの上に寝るがごと
yamadera ya kogarashi no ue ni neru ga goto

Kobayashi Issa

mountain temple--
like it's lying down
on the winter wind

Hiroshi Kobori comments on the word, kogarashi ("winter wind").
In early Japanese poetry, this refers to the wind that blows through trees, breaking branches and turning the leaves brown. By Issa's time it means "a dry windy day during the late autumn--deep winter season."
It is classified as a winter season word.

More haiku about the "kogarashi" from Issa
Tr. David Lanoue

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Echigo Mountains Echigo yama　
越後山　えちごやま


こがらしや隣と云もえちご山
kogarashi ya kabe no ushiro wa echigo yama

winter wind--
behind the wall
is the deep north

Issa (tr. David Lanoue)

Issa ends this haiku with the phrase, echigo yama ("Echigo mountain[s]"). Echigo is one of the old provinces of Japan, today's Niigata Prefecture. A northern land, it is famous for its coldness. For this reason, French translator L. Mabesoone renders the closing phrase, as ("la frontière du nord": "the northern frontier"; Issa to kuhi (Tokyo: Kankohkai 2003) 49.
This seems a reasonable solution to the following problem: in Issa's time "the mountains of Echigo" would have been synonymous with a cold place in the north, but for most English readers this connotation is nonexistent.

ледяной ветер
застеной начинаетсяполя
рная ночь
(Russian by Eugene Wasserstrom)


夜涼や足でかぞへるえちご山
yo suzumi ya ashi de kazoeru echigo yama

evening cool--
with my feet counting
the mountains of Echigo

"Evening cool" is a kigo for summer.

More haiku by Issa about the cold Echigo Mountains

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Related words

***** WIND in various kigo


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Please send your contributions to Gabi Greve
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